Supreme Court directs to conduct immediate elections to local bodies

Supreme Court on Friday ordered the Election Commission to conduct elections for ZPTC and MPTC and a notification should be issued within two days. It also warned that if notification is not given, it would be deemed as contempt of court.

It also questioned and expressed displeasure for not action taken when it ordered to conduct polls way back on February 18, 2013. The court directed State Government and to the Election Commission to submit a report on the delay.

The Bench ordered to conduct municipal Elections on March 30 and then elections to ZPTC and MPTC and then Assembly and Parliament.

It may be recalled here that in February 2013, the Supreme Court bench of Justice P Sathasivam and Justice JS Khehar directed the State to conduct polls on the basis of the existing 60.5% reservation for BCs (34%), SCs (18.25%) and STs (8.25%). Following a petition challenging the quota as exceeding the limit fixed by the apex court, the AP High Court had directed the state to hold the PR polls by fixing 50% as upper limit of the quota for the BCs, SC-STs . Monday's decision of the Supreme Court was on the basis of an appeal filed by the state government against the HC order.

The term of the panchayati raj institutions, namely 1,094 Zilla Parishad territorial constituency (ZPTC) members , 14,591 mandal Parishad territorial constituency members (MPTC), and 21,843 sarpanches , ended in July 2011 and since then, they have been under the control of special officers in the absence of elected councils. The PR polls could not be held till now as the issue was pending in the court.